


Active Shooter

by baunitchief (emeryazure)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-09 06:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15261195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeryazure/pseuds/baunitchief
Summary: As Emily and JJ have a busy day ahead of them at the BAU, Henry is facing problems at his new high school with heavier consequences than he could ever imagine.





	Active Shooter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, guys, this is the new two-parter i've been talking about on tumblr and i'm excited to share it with you. it's a pretty serious topic if you can't tell from the title. it fits in perfectly with the angsty future aus that is my comfort zone. it's only slightly au, the timeline is a little skewed but there's brief domesticated fun in here too before we get to the serious nitty gritty.
> 
> anyways, enjoy the first part as i try to sit down and write the last!

Emily Prentiss is growing impatient but she isn’t exactly irritable yet. Her leg shaking up and down and the way she keeps glancing at her green watch is unnerving Jennifer Jareau as she places the backpack on the shoulders of her sleepy youngest son, Michael. The blonde knows its driving her wife crazy not already being in the office, especially after a case but this was a deal that both women had reconciled on for the sake of their sons. They would spend as much time with the boys as possible after cases away.

And this Tuesday morning is just such an occasion as they had just gotten back from a case in New York the previous night. This was a relatively rare occurrence for the unit chief who was always usually the first awake and out the door before the crack of dawn but JJ was already immune to Henry’s morning antics by this point so she simply rolls her eyes.

But her wife’s dull nails thudding rhythmically across the kitchen counter is grating to say the least so JJ sighs as she makes her way out of the kitchen and to the banister off the living room. From there she raises her voice, “Henry, you better get your butt down here right now or you’re walking to school!”

At that precise moment, the barely teenaged boy of fourteen comes barreling out of his bedroom, his long blonde hair was flying every which direction, finally falling over his ears and into his eyes as he reached the bottom of the stairs in a huff. There, JJ greets him with a devious smirk and offers him his backpack. He protests as he snatches it from her, “School is like four miles away.”

“And we don’t set our clocks by the time you choose to roll out of bed in the morning,” the blonde woman offers in a smart-aleck turn. “If you want to eat you better grab something quick cause me, mom and Michael are headed out the door.”

“Crap,” the boy scours into the kitchen grabbing a pop-tart and a Gatorade as the rest of his family makes their way for the door leading to the garage. Henry slightly shoves Emily, who simply grunts and rolls her eyes as the growing boy makes his way past her, through the door and into the back of the black SUV with his younger brother.

The brunette makes her way into the driver’s seat steadily but in a hurried way, JJ chuckles from the passenger’s side as her wife opens the garage door via the remote on the visor. “In a bit of a rush this morning, are we?” JJ sings songs jokingly.

“We are still on a deadline to turn in our reports to Cruz and debrief on the New York case, if you’ll remember,” Emily says with a huff.

“What? And miss the beauty of seeing our two grumpy bed-headed blonde boys off to school?” JJ laughs and Emily joins her, looking into the rearview mirror to start reversing but also taking in the sight of their two boys in the backseat. Michael was fighting to stay awake while Henry’s head is downcast, eating his pop-tart in silence. That’s when she notices.

“Hey, Henry, where are your glasses, bud?” Emily asks concerned, turning towards her son. She knew the older boy was relatively blind without the thick black frames that Reid had helped him pick out a few years before.

At this, JJ turns back looking at her eldest son in confusion and concern. But he simply shrugs his shoulders and says, “I guess I just forgot them when mama was rushing me.”

“Well, if you need your glasses, bud, we’re already late,” Emily offers, she already knows that even though JJ was silent for the moment that her wife couldn’t help but be worried about the matter. “You might as well run in and get them, we can wait.”

“No, we’re already late,” Henry says with a relatively too-quick shake of his head, almost defensively. “You have your reports and I don’t want Michael being late because of me.”

Emily meets her wife’s eyes for a moment, silently wondering if she should push the boy on the matter but JJ’s cool blue eyes meet hers, her eyebrows raised but she only shrugs. So Emily doesn’t push it, instead she simply puts the car in reverse and the family are on their way.

JJ enjoyed these little moments like this, her entire family in the car together, even for such a mundane task as being on their way to school and work. But it wasn’t the activity that mattered to her, just having the three people she loved and cared about most in this world all together in one place was enough to have her beaming. And the fact that Emily is actually in a decent mood this morning is helping.

When they had first started this little routine, Emily would be just as grumpy as the two boys, borderline angry about the matter but she generally kept her mouth shut for the sake of her wife. But that was far from the case this morning as the younger agent just watches on as her wife bounced in the driver’s seat, Emily had tuned the radio to an oldies station that was playing 80s hits.

And not just any 80s hits but all of Emily’s favorites so JJ was thoroughly enjoying watching the older woman cut loose and dance to Red Hot Chili Peppers songs as they dropped Michael off in the carpool and he quickly got out to greet his best friend, Hank Morgan, without even a second glance backwards. The blonde enjoys all the more as the dark-haired woman starts serenading her with the lyrics and tune to “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure, she catches Henry’s rolling eyes from the backseat.

She knows her son is absolutely cringing and borderline disappearing as he slides down his seat when they pull up at the high school, the one where Henry was a budding freshman in only his second month at the school. His embarrassment due to Emily scream singing and headbanging to Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle.” The song was fading as Henry tries to make a quick escape but JJ has him by the backpack before he can exit, landing a kiss on his reddening cheek.

“Ugh, bye, moms,” he begrudges as he steps out the vehicle.

“Hey, we love you,” Emily says with a wide smile on her face, looking out her rolled down window at the boy as he stares at her a little.

“Yeah, I love you too,” he mumbles and shuts the door, making his way from the car.

“God, when did I become that parent?” Emily asks rhetorically with a scoff. “I remember the torture of being a freshman and here I am embarrassing my own son in front of his classmates.”

“Hey, it could be worse, he could’ve not responded when you said we love him so,” JJ comes to a conclusion as she leans over and lands a quick kiss on her wife’s lips before returning to her seat. “We will take that as a victory, now drive cause we have piles of paperwork and boring meetings ahead of us.”

“Ugh, just when I was starting to enjoy this morning,” Emily says jokingly as she drives off from the high school and finally makes her way towards Quantico. 

* * *

 

“Hugs and kisses, Henry!” an older boy wearing a white baseball hat turned backwards suddenly says as he makes his way in front of the young freshman, imitating kisses and throwing mocking smooches his way. “’We love you, Henry!’”

The young blonde boy manages to shrug off the attention as he passes by with his head down so he doesn’t notice when two boys clad in black make their way over to him. He only realizes when he is clocked in the shoulder by one of them and he tries but fails in his attempt to not fall to the ground.

“Who knew lesbo stepmom was such a metalhead, huh?” the larger of the two boys teases, sticking his tongue out and making horns with his index and pinky.

“Yeah, the loser genes must’ve come from your jock-ass bio mom,” another with spiked hair offers. “She's a major MILF though, ten out of ten, would bang. She _is_ bi, right?”

“Shut up,” Henry suddenly lets out lowly as he stands. He usually didn’t let the teasing get to him but when it came to his mothers or family, the overprotective side tended to leak out.

“’Shut up!’ God, what a little prick,” the spiked hair one spits. “You’re pathetic, four eyes, did you forget your nerd vision this morning, huh?”

“Go fuck yourself,” Henry replies as he shoves the kid out of his way so he can make his way inside the school. Just as he does so a teacher, well, one of the coaches appears and steps in front of him. Just great, he thinks. Two months into the school year and this is what he was already facing.

“Mr. LaMontagne, I’m disappointed,” Coach Beckett says in a tone of warning as he steps to the short boy. “I’m surprised to hear that kind of language from you but you know we don’t allow it here so if you’ll be so kind to see me after first period which I believe you are already late for.”

“Yes sir, Coach,” Henry nods and casts his head down again. He makes his way past the tall man and into the building on his way to the first class of the day. He’s happy to see the halls now empty unlike the lawn of the school had been.

So he quietly makes his way to class and anxiously awaits the sound of the ringing of that first bell, signaling that it was ultimately time for his dreaded meeting with Coach Beckett. The coach was one of his favorite teachers and he taught the freshman soccer team which he had made and had been excelling with so far. The last thing he wanted to do was give the coach reason to doubt him.

So he waits.

* * *

 

Emily and JJ stroll through the glass doors of the BAU together, they were so caught up in the delight of their easy conversation that they barely even notice anyone else. So they definitely don’t notice when Penelope Garcia leaps up from where she was leaning against Alvez’s desk and hastily makes her way over to the blonde agent and her unit chief. She simply clears her throat. This draws the married couple from each other’s smiles and over to the tech analyst.

“Finally, I thought I had lost you two to that sickening look in each other’s eyes,” Garcia deadpans. “And on that note, since I have your attention; hi, I missed you both so, so much.”

The duo find themselves sandwiched into a hug by the spirited blonde. Emily chuckles slightly at their friend’s manner, “Garcia, we were only gone three days!”

“Three days too long and I didn’t even get to see you two after you landed last night,” Penelope protests as she pulls away from the hug. “As you went running off to your two mini-knights-in-shining-armor which I can’t blame you for but still-”

“Pen, I need you to breathe, alright?” JJ says with raised eyebrows, arms extended out to her friend.

“Right, sorry, I don’t know what it was but I just really missed you guys,” Garcia says with a pout. “Maybe it was that I really wasn’t of much use on this case.”

“Not of much use?” the dark-haired woman scoffs. “Garcia, you got us the security feed that helped us track the guy down.”

“Okay, you’re right, I’m amazing,” the tech analyst beams. “I guess I don’t need an excuse to miss my best friends, huh?”

“No, you don’t and we missed you too, Garcia,” JJ says with a wide smile. That’s when Emily spots Rossi sauntering his way down the steps from his office. She can see by the glint in his eyes that he is a little perturbed.

“Well, look who finally decided to roll out of the love nest this morning,” Rossi says as he approaches the three women. The young blonde agent and unit chief exchanging quick, guilty glances with each other. “I thought Cruz was gonna try and make me unit chief again since number one and number two in charge were conspicuously missing-in-action.”

“Alright, look, you guys know the deal, JJ and I always spend a little more time with the boys after cases,” the brunette defends. “And this was no different.”

“Except Henry decided it was an absolutely perfect day to sleep in,” the blonde rolls her eyes at the thought of her son’s behavior that morning. “Sorry we’re late.”

“Well, we better all get our reports done on the New York case so we can get them turned in and debrief in a couple of hours,” Emily says seriously but Rossi and Garcia share a glance before turning back and also looking at Alvez, Simmons, Lewis and Reid, who had his lips shut tightly together, shifting his eyes, unable to meet theirs. “What?”

“Everyone else has already turned in their reports and Cruz may or may not only be waiting on yours and JJ’s,” Garcia says wincing slightly, afraid that this would set the perfectionist that Emily tended to be off and her assumptions are slightly correct.

“Shit, alright, just give me an hour and I’ll have the final report drawn up,” Emily says seriously before meeting JJ’s blue eyes again, this time in a demanding manner. “We better get to work.”

“Wait, an hour? Are you serious, Em?” the blonde asks her wife and unit chief incredulously. “It’s gonna take me an hour just to type up how we took down and arrested the guy.”

“And we may or may not have a few local police cases lining up on my desk that I need you to review, Emily,” Garcia says, her eyes widening, afraid that adding to the stress would only make things worse. She figures honesty is the best policy however. “Sorry.”

“We’ve got an hour, Jay,” the dark-haired woman says seriously, turning to her wife. JJ nods in the affirmative but sighs as her wife is already off to her office to get started. “Garcia, send the files over.”

“You got it, oh Capitan,” Penelope shouts before she is shooting off towards her lair.

“Emily and Garcia may be the queens of multitasking at work but I can barely make it through one these days,” the blonde rolls her eyes as she makes the comment to no one in particular but Rossi offers her a sympathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder before he leaves. “Reid, I need your eyes!”

“Already on it,” the lean genius shouts from where he is writing at his desk, next to JJ’s that she is quickly approaching.

“Back to reality,” JJ says as she sits down and prepares to dive in. She wondered what had changed since her liaison days where she was able to juggle a myriad of case files at once. She most certainly lends that to having two boys, most days she was happier to have a lighter load to focus on her family but it could easily feel like a burden when things like this happen. She snaps out of her thoughts. “Let's get this over with.”

* * *

 

After first hour, the dreaded bell rang out loudly through the school. Henry stands from his desk but not too quickly. He keeps his head down and manages to hide his small, lanky frame in the midst of the escaping crowds in the hallway. He carries the gregarious books. He figures he’ll make a straight course for the offices for his meeting with Coach Beckett since his locker was further away.

The hall starts to clear of students as Henry made his way to the offices, he saw Coach Beckett sitting at his desk through the window and at just that moment the coach saw him, waving him in. But just as he approaches, someone knocks the books straight out of his hands. The blonde boy manages to keep his feet but heavy books and papers go flying in every which direction.

“Watch where you’re going, dweeb!” a young man shouts, the freshman not even looking up at who had so carelessly run into him. It didn’t matter anyway. To make matters all the worse, Coach Beckett saw the whole thing transpire and was now making his way out of his office.

“Let me help you, son,” Beckett offers as he starts to lean down to grab one of the textbooks.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Henry protests as he gathers the book right out from under the coach’s grasp. “I got it, don’t worry about it.”

Just as he says this, Henry gathers the last of the loose paper and stands to face his coach. The decision is regrettable however, he should’ve just kept his head down if the pity he sees in the bulky, brown man’s eyes are telling him anything.

“Why don’t you come on in and have a seat, Henry,” Beckett offers a weak smile, one arm stretched towards his office while the other was supporting on the young man’s shoulder. “We’re just gonna have a talk, alright? You’re not in any trouble.”

So the young blonde boy makes his way into the office, setting his books easily down next to the chair as he is seated. Coach Beckett rounds his desk and sits in his office chair. He seems to flip open the file that was set on his desk, studying it for a moment before he speaks. 

“I was looking over your file and you seem to be an exemplary student, Henry, we’ve had no problems with you since you started here,” Coach Beckett starts as he looks up at the boy. “But I have to ask if something like what happened in the hallway just now happened on the lawn this morning... is that what caused your outburst?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it an outburst, coach,” the shaggy haired boy says. “I was only trying to put those guys in their place, it’s one thing to make fun of me but no one makes fun of my family.”

“Oh, I see,” the burly man nods as he glances down to reference the file before him. “Yes, I see here that your two guardians are your mother and her wife.”

Henry’s downcast eyes turn up at the man, “Emily’s my mom too.”

“Right, of course but I can’t help but notice that you share a different last name from them,” the coach observes. “What about your dad?”

“What about him?” Henry asks a little clueless, his eyes shifting side to side before he shifts a little uneasy. “I mean, I don’t really know him... he left to go back home to New Orleans when I was three.”

“I see that a lot in kids your age,” Beckett says thoughtfully. “That must be difficult, not having your dad around and not knowing him.”

The boy seems unfazed by the question, “I mean I’ve never really known anything different.”

“I guess what I’m worried about is if you have enough positive male role models in your life,” the coach articulates. “Someone you can kick the ball around with and who can guide you.”

“I’m not really sure I get what you mean, sir,” Henry shrugs. “I mean my mom got a soccer scholarship and we scrimmage together all the time.”

“But are there any males in your life who you can go to, you know, when things get hard and you don’t feel like you can tell your moms?” Coach Beckett clarifies further.

“Well, I mean I can tell my moms anything,” the blonde boy defends. “Sure, my mom gets super overprotective sometimes but Emily is usually there to understand when that happens.”

“I know you love your moms, Henry and that’s not in question here,” the coach makes it clear and Henry eases a little. He honestly wasn’t really getting where the conversation was headed. “Let me put this another way, who would you say is the one guy in your life that you would go to in a pinch if your moms weren’t around?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Henry relays. “Me and my little brother usually stay with Uncle Morgan and his wife when my moms are away and they’re away a lot for work.”

“Well, that’s good,” Beckett smiles, finally getting an answer out of the closed off boy. “What kind of things do you and this Mr. Morgan do when you’re there?”

“Well, Derek’s always trying to get me to play football but I don’t really get it,” the slim boy grimaces. “I don’t understand why a bunch of dudes would want to run around on a field hitting each other.”

“That’s okay, liking football doesn’t make you a man,” the burly man says, chuckling slightly at the boy’s reasoning. “But do you like throwing the ball around and spending time with him?”

“Sure, but normally I prefer to hang out with my Uncle Reid,” Henry says with yet another shrug, he was certainly a typical teenaged boy. “He helps me a lot with school work but he’s away a lot with moms.”

“There you go, see, there’s two positive male role model right there then,” Coach Beckett says with a smile before his smile falls a little and he seems to be contemplating something. “Let me ask you something else, do you have any friends here at school, Henry?”

“Um, I mean not a lot,” the scrawny boy says while shifting his eyes. “I’ve kind of grown apart from my friends in middle school and I just started here.”

“School’s been in for two months, Henry,” Beckett regales, sounding more concerned now. “That’s more than enough time to make friends.”

“I do have a friend, he’s a bit older,” the boy offers a little defensively. “Do you know Jack Hotchner?”

“Of course, he seems like a good kid,” the older man says with a nod, most of the faculty knew Jack Hotchner as he had infamously good grades and was involved with a lot of extracurricular activities. “He’s a junior, right?”

“Yeah, and he’s in line to make valedictorian next year,” Henry tells the coach with vigor like it mattered or would impress him. “But I don’t really hang out with him when I’m at school.”

“Why is that?” Beckett turns his full attention back to Henry. “Does Jack hang out with any of the kids who tease you?”

“No, no,” the blonde says with a shake of his head and another shrug. “I guess he just has his friends and well, I’m fresh meat.”

“Right,” the coach nods. “Well, have you asked Jack to introduce you to some of his friends?”

“I mean, no, not really, I guess,” Henry offers.

“Alright, well, I have a challenge for you, Henry,” the burly man says with a smile turning up his lips now. Henry doesn’t know if he likes that smile or not. “Are you up for it?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m always down for a challenge, sir,” Henry says as he swallows hard. He wanted to impress his coach and wanted to make sure he knew he was up for anything.

“At lunch, I want you to talk to Jack and ask if you could meet some of his friends and show you the ropes a little,” the coach suggests. “You think you can do that for me?”

“Uh, I guess,” the boy says, losing eye contact with the man and starts picking at his fingers slightly. He’s not really sure what it is but he suddenly feels a weight fall on his chest. “I mean I don’t think Jack would object to that.”

“Good,” Coach Beckett was showing teeth now, his smile was so wide as he stood up from his chair. “I want you to meet back with me by the end of the day and tell me how that goes, alright?”

“Yeah, alright,” Henry begrudges a little as he stands up himself. He hadn’t lied when he said he was friends with Jack Hotchner. He was, it had just been a while since they had really talked. It had been at least since the previous summer but he could work with that. He just hoped he was the same Jack that he had known back then, high school has a tendency to change people or so Henry had noticed. 

“Good, now get to class before you’re late... again,” Coach Beckett says giving him a semi-serious look but his smiles gives away the lightheartedness of the conversation.

“Yes, sir,” Henry says as he gulps down what he hopes is the nervous crack in his voice. “Thank you, coach.”

“It’s no problem, son.”

And with that, Henry picks up his books and leaves the office with nothing more to say. But feeling like his social course load just got a lot heavier and much more complicated.

* * *

 

Emily Prentiss was in full unit chief mode. She had finished her report and had gotten through the many consults that Garcia had lined up in their absence and had even assigned them to the agents she felt would help the cases further along. So she saunters out of her office, files in hand and makes her way across the catwalk to address the group of agents seated below.

“Alright, debriefing on the New York case in the conference room in five minutes,” the brunette offers seriously and everyone starts shuffling about to get their case files ready.

But JJ’s head, that was practically glued to the computer screen in front of her, snaps up at the statement. Her eyes growing wide in realization, “But, Em, I’m not quite through with my report yet.”

Emily turns back to look at the blonde, shocked and a little perturbed that her wife hadn’t completed her task yet. “JJ, you’ve had three hours, what have you been doing?”

“Alvez needed a second opinion on a profile for the Denver consult so we were going through that for a while,” JJ says a little defensively. She knew she hadn’t been entirely focused on the report, she had held banter with almost the entire team throughout the course of the morning but now she was regretting it.

“Well, finish it and you and I will debrief later,” the older woman says with a sigh. “We’ve got a lot of new cases that we need to consult on and I’ll be handing them out after the debriefing so be prepared.”

Without waiting for a response or barely even glancing at her wife, no further statements or questions, the unit chief makes her way into Rossi’s office and disappears. JJ sighs heavily and her head falls upon the desk in front of her in frustration.

“Uh oh, looks like someone’s in hot water with the unit chief,” Simmons says with a chuckle as he stands, prepared for the debriefing.

“Oh, whatever,” JJ says with a roll of her eyes, looking back at the man. “What exactly is she gonna do to her wife?”

“Withhold sex,” Tara offers as she walks over and leans against JJ’s desk with an amused smile.

The blonde agent simply scoffs and shakes her head, “Oh, please, Emily’s worse than a dude when it comes to sex so she couldn’t do that if she wanted to.”

“Okay, ever heard of too much information?” Simmons grimaces a little in disgust at the topic of conversation that the team was holding.

“I don’t know,” Alvez says with a cheeky smirk now, still seated at his desk. “Emily can be pretty stubborn.”

“Not when it comes to that,” JJ says with a smile of her own. “Trust me.”

“Well, she did say she would debrief you later,” Reid suddenly deadpans. “Maybe that’s some sort of euphemism for sex, I wouldn’t be surprised with Emily.”

“Reid!” JJ exclaims, she was used to the office banter and teasing about her banging the boss but that was taking it a little too far even for her.

“Oh, children,” Simmons sighs as he makes his way to the conference room, not wanting to hear the end of this conversation.

“See, you got nothing to worry about, JJ,” Tara says teasingly. “But I still wouldn’t fuck with Emily when it comes to paperwork.”

“Alright, everyone in the conference room,” the room is quieted by Emily and Rossi making their way from his office as the unit chief addresses them yet again. “And JJ, get it done, Cruz won’t wait all day.”

“On it,” JJ promises and as everyone leaves for the conference room, she lets out a breath she wasn’t even aware that she had been holding.

The blonde woman is beyond frustrated because for some reason she just couldn’t focus today. Maybe it was coming off the high of the case and falling back into their normal routine. But the acclimation wasn’t working too well today.

Her mind was wandering elsewhere. She wonders what was up with Henry’s behavior that morning. He hadn’t seemed his usual self. She knew high school was hard though and she’s sure that the boy was just doing some acclimating of his own to the new environment.

She shakes her head. She needs to focus on nothing but the report right now. Work had to be done and she could worry about the boys later. She was certain she needed to have a talk with her eldest son soon however and decides to do just that.

So with this thought, she returns to the file in front of her, determined to have razor sharp focus to get it done as fast as possible or she know she’ll never hear the end of it from Emily.

* * *

 

As fourth period is let out, Henry is trying not to think about the fact that he had hardly been able to get any real notes from his class. He could barely see the board where the teachers were writing bullet points and solving equations. The decision not to wear his glasses that morning seemed to be a bigger mistake than he had realized now. He figures trying to fit in comes at a cost.

So instead now he was trying to muster courage to do what Coach Beckett had requested of him. He had spotted Jack Hotchner in the halls between classes but he hadn’t managed the nerve to approach him just yet. The boy was nearly 6’1 now and captain of the baseball team, he was honestly one of the most popular kids in the entire school and he was also one of the nice guys.

Henry remembers growing up with Jack, playing together at functions the team had held and he remembers how fun it had been schooling the older boy when they had played video games together this past summer. But would he still call him a friend? He’s not sure but there was only one way to find out so the blonde boy steadies himself, letting out air and closes his locker as he sees Jack and two buddies headed for the exit.

The scrawny boy wipes his sweaty palms on the jeans he had chosen this morning and lets out a deep breath before he exits the glass doors following his former friend. As he walks outside, he finds his voice however, “Hey, Jack, wait up!”

“Oh, hey, Henry,” Jack says with a nod of his head, stopping to look back at the smaller boy before turning back to his friends. “You guys go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

The blonde boy stays silent as he watches two of Jack’s friends go, he knew them to also be from the baseball team, walk ahead and through the glass doors into the cafeteria. He suddenly had a lump in his throat that wouldn’t move. Maybe he felt slightly intimidated by Jack’s size now, it hadn’t seemed to bother him before but here at school, feeling like the social pariah, the three or four inches that the dark brown haired boy had on him was felt.

“Was there something you wanted, H?” Jack asks nicely but a little impatiently seeing as Henry had kept quiet this whole time. Henry looks up at the boy and then back where the other two boys had headed towards. He sees Coach Beckett there, holding the cafeteria doors open for the kids entering. The blonde boy knows the man is watching the encounter closely so he steels himself.

“Yeah, I was just wondering if you had a minute,” Henry offers finally. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay, yeah, man, I got a minute,” Jack nods kindly. “What’s up?”

“Look, I know this will sound stupid but do you ever feel like your missing something, not having your mom around?” Henry asks and he immediately regrets it. He sees Jack eyes narrow, his jaw clench tight and he seems to stare off into the distance. “What I mean is, you know my dad left and all and I’ve just been wondering how my life would be different if he had been there, you know?”

“It’s a little different, H,” Jack says evenly, not giving too much emotion away. “My mom’s dead and I’ll never know anything different.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what I told someone when they asked me about it too,” Henry says thoughtfully, casting his head down. “He’s just gone and I have no way of contacting him, he might as well be dead to me too, you know?”

“Have you talked Aunt JJ about this?” Jack inquires seriously, looking over at the shorter boy.

“No, no, the question only came up today and I don’t know,” Henry shrugs, finding the courage to look up at the older boy again. “I just thought that you’d understand, I guess.”

“Hey, I get it,” the dark haired boy offers, a smile sliding onto his face now. “Look, man, if you don’t have any other plans, why don’t you join me and my friends on the lawn for lunch?”

“On the lawn?” Henry swallows heavily. “You don’t think they’d mind that the fresh meat is interrupting their meal or something?”

“Hell nah, kid,” Jack laughs easily. “They know if you hang with me that you’re chill, man, just don’t act like fresh meat and they won’t taste blood, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get you,” Henry nods, a smile on his face now. Jack nods towards the cafeteria now and they start making their way towards the doors. “I was hoping that you could actually kind of show me the ropes, you know? Like who’s chill and who’s not, I feel like I don’t know anyone around here.”

Jack’s attention seems to be drawn to the parking lot where two boys clad in baggy black cargo pants and long leather jackets were standing before he offers, “First things first, avoid those freaks.”

Henry looks to where Jack was referencing, he sees a tall boy and a shorter one as they make their way towards the cafeteria with big blue gym bags from their cars. Henry’s head falls as they approach, he notices out of the corner of his eye that his friend was still staring at the boy.

“Boo!” the taller one says into Jack’s face as they cut off the boys on the way into the cafeteria.

The shorter one who was wearing a black snapback backwards says, “Stay the fuck out of our way.”

As the two boys enter, Jack just scoffs and shakes his head. Henry finally looks up, confused, “Who are those guys anyway?”

“Jake and Mitch,” the taller boy regales. “Seniors, I heard they were arrested last year.”

“Is it true?” Henry asks skeptically, thinking that high schoolers were generally full of it and always one to embellish stories.

“No one knows for sure but the fact that they actually don’t brag about it makes me think it’s true,” Jack says with a shrug. “Most of the burnouts try to make themselves seem more bad ass than they actually are but those two aren’t really like that, they’re just dark, I guess.”

“What did they get arrested for?” the blonde boy inquires as they enter the cafeteria and make their way to the line to buy lunch.

“Apparently making bombs and trying to blow up a car,” Jack says with a shrug. “I don't know and I really don’t care, I just stay away from them so I’d advise you to do the same.”

“Yeah, no problem there,” Henry says with a chuckle and simply follows Jack along in the line.

* * *

 

JJ finally hit send on the email to Cruz that had her final report attached. She breathes a sigh of relief as she had finally zoned in enough to finish the task at hand. She stretches slightly, turning her office chair towards the conference room where the team was still debriefing and probably going over the consults they had for the day.

She knows she should move to join them but her body stays in its position for the moment. The blonde figures she deserved a moment to emerge from the darkness of their job to simply breathe. That’s when she notices a female agent from another team nearby watching the television in the corner before the woman sprints for the remote to turn it up.

JJ’s unseeing eyes don’t pay much attention to what was transpiring on the national news channel the set was tuned to but she suddenly hears the voice from the television, “This just in, a gunman has reportedly opened fire at George Washington High School here in Washington, DC…”

That’s when the ringing first starts in the blonde agent’s ear but she stands, her eyes focused in on the bold print running across the bottom of the news cast. Her ears hadn’t deceived her. This was real. _Gunman_. _George Washington High School_. _Henry_.

“Emily!” JJ manages to find an octave in her voice she didn’t know existed until this moment as she yells to grab her wife’s attention. She had stood from her chair but her body couldn’t move for the moment.

That’s when Emily exits the conference room in a rush, the team following suit but slower now. The dark haired woman is looking at her stunned still wife as if she’d gone mad, her arms leaning steadily against the railing. “What the hell is going on, JJ?”

“The television,” JJ says so quietly, so somberly that Emily nearly doesn’t catch it but her head whips around. Seeing the same information that the younger agent’s mind was still trying to wrap around in that moment. “Henry.”

The brunette feels her throat drop into her stomach. Then suddenly most of the phones in the office were ringing off the hook, many of the other agents, including Luke, Matt and Tara, were answering the phone in a mad dash but JJ still couldn’t move. She couldn’t believe this was happening.

“That means we’re lead on the case, everything else comes second,” Emily says as she switches into gear, she figures that the gift of turning off her emotions and leaning into objectivity was about to become the most important tool she had. “I need all teams readied and headed towards the SUV in two minutes, we can be there in ten.”

“Emily,” JJ whispers through her lips that were sealed nearly shut in fear, her eyes wide.

“Garcia, get SWAT on the phone, we need them setting up a perimeter and ready to go when we get there,” the older woman snaps and Garcia, who had let a tear slid down her cheek, simply nods. “And get survellience footage, we need eyes inside.”

While the rest of the team was reading to leave, that’s when the unit chief makes her way down the stairs and over to her wife, her wife was still staring at the television, not seeing anything but the minimal information that was coming across the screen. At least two wounded, no one confirmed dead yet.

“JJ… JJ, look at me!” Emily demands, snapping her wife out of her trance. The dark haired woman wasn’t quite expecting the pool of emotions or the pure terror that lined the bright blue irises of her wife as they met her own. “JJ, I need you here and I need you present for this, alright? I’m sure Henry is fine. We have no reason to believe he’s not, okay?”

“Emily, I don’t know if I can-” JJ starts as she swallows tightly, shaking her head slightly.

“Yes, you can, yes, you can, alright,” Emily assures to the best of her ability. “Do you remember when you pregnant with Henry and Benjamin Cyrus had me and Reid? You did it then and you can do this now.”

“This is different, Em,” JJ says defiantly. “This is our _son_.”

“I know that and we’ll try to call him from the car,” Emily says with a serious nod. “Now get ready cause we have to go, if we want to ensure that Henry is safe, we have to leave _now_.”

This seems to rally the younger agent now as she nods her head more assuredly, her hands making a fist as she grabs her gun and badge from where they set on the desk. She could do this. No, she had to do this. She had to do this for Henry. For her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title of this chapter is from a line in "September's Children (Make It Stop)" by Rise Against.
> 
> comments and kudos are nice so let me know what you think and if you want me to continue.


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